Thor Equities’ 590 Fifth Avenue Gets $100 Million in Financing

Thor Equities, headed by CEO Joseph Sitt, bought the 19-story, 100,000-square-foot office and retail building in 2007 from the Feil Organization for $90 million, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. Tenants there include AT&T and the NBA store.

590 Fifth Avenue.

An executive managing director of Cushman & Wakefield Equity, Debt & Structured Finance, Dave Karson, told The Mortgage Observer that the loan’s terms exemplify the interest in not only New York property in general, but retail on lower Fifth Avenue.

“I think that Fifth Avenue in the 50s has always been the best retail corridor probably in the country,” Mr. Karson said. “As of the last few years, Fifth Avenue in the 40s is starting to catch up.” He attributes this, he said, to “a hard line” that used to exist at Saks and Rockefeller Center that retailers didn’t want to cross.

“Folks have realized that south of Rock Center and Saks is also a very, very attractive market and the rents are half of what they are a block north,” he pointed out. “So all the from 49th Street down to 40th Street you’re seeing a lot of high end, high rent paying retailers moving on to that strip.”

Mr. Karson said that the $100 million loan—a blend of mortgage and mezzanine—“was a low five debt yield, which is a terrific level of proceeds and it was done at a very favorable interest rate, which I just think illustrates the demand for New York City property right now.” He declined to say what the rate provided by the lender was, but said that the bulk of the loan was the senior mortgage component.

Other team members at Cushman on the deal included Steve Kohn, Alex Hernandez, Kate Pelet and John Spreitzer.